DK Shrine - Remastered

[Borax Man]

DK Shrine Remastered is an "old school" Doom II WAD, based on levels made in 1994-1995.  As a result, it has a layout and gameplay style familiar to people who played levels coming out in that era, but with a fresh and appealing visual style.

 

People looking for a WAD with more modern gameplay elements and style may be dissapointed, but those who did enjoy the more abstract, iD like levels which were around during DooMs heyday should find something to enjoy.

This WAD is basically my original "The Shrine" WAD with significant cosmetic, design and gameplay changes.

.

It works with gzdoom, prboom, prboom+, crispy doom and doomsday, and has new music, a small number of new textures.  Best played without any other mods, and without jumping/crouching.

 

Download here.

http://members.iinet.net.au/~dennisk@netspace.net.au/Doom2Levels/dkshrine_rv2.zip

 

MOD DB page here.

https://www.moddb.com/mods/dk-shrine-remastered/downloads/dk-shrine-remastered-version-2

 

*EDIT*

Version 2 has been released.  Download links are updated.

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 2, 2019 by Borax Man

[Korozive]

Screenshots look great. Downloading.

[Sir Hattington]

Were is Donkey Kong?

[General Rainbow Bacon]

I played the original back in the day and thinking it was pretty fun.  Looking forward to seeing what you did here. 

[Borax Man]

3 hours ago, General Rainbow Bacon said:

I played the original back in the day and thinking it was pretty fun.  Looking forward to seeing what you did here. 

Cool! I didn't think many people would have played it, or found it all that great.

 

This release is quite different from the original (it only has the first 10 levels) in that the levels have been expanded and refined quite a bit.  In a way, this is more like a remake than a touch up.

[Caleb13]

Maps are pretty good, not exactly easy, but also not half-the-monsters-are-archviles hard like is slowly becoming the norm these days. The common annoyance on the larger maps is that it's not clear which switch opens what, so the player has to run around like a headless chicken and check everything. Modern maps usually solve this by giving some visual cues near switches and doors that are linked together. And MAP09 definitely needs more polishing, there are lots of misaligned textures and I also encountered some bugs:

 

-If you step on and run on sector 669 (or was it 674?), you can jump over the lava pit. Thus you can finish the map without obtaining the red key, which means you can skip some 95% of the fight.

 

-Linedef 9647 is WR, not SR, so the player becomes stuck in the secret sector 1073.

 

-Sector 429 shouldn't be damaging.

 

-It took me forever to find switch on linedef 11940. Perhaps it would be prudent to put it to a more visible place or remove it altogether?

 

-Oh, and there is no way out of a pit (sectors 1547 etc.) in MAP08.

[General Rainbow Bacon]

If you do the full megawad as a tune-up it may indeed be cacoward material.  Took a quick look yesterday and the maps look awesome.  I'll post an update after I play through them.

[Borax Man]

On 7/29/2019 at 11:00 PM, Caleb13 said:

Maps are pretty good, not exactly easy, but also not half-the-monsters-are-archviles hard like is slowly becoming the norm these days. The common annoyance on the larger maps is that it's not clear which switch opens what, so the player has to run around like a headless chicken and check everything. Modern maps usually solve this by giving some visual cues near switches and doors that are linked together. And MAP09 definitely needs more polishing, there are lots of misaligned textures and I also encountered some bugs:

 

-If you step on and run on sector 669 (or was it 674?), you can jump over the lava pit. Thus you can finish the map without obtaining the red key, which means you can skip some 95% of the fight.

 

-Linedef 9647 is WR, not SR, so the player becomes stuck in the secret sector 1073.

 

-Sector 429 shouldn't be damaging.

 

-It took me forever to find switch on linedef 11940. Perhaps it would be prudent to put it to a more visible place or remove it altogether?

 

-Oh, and there is no way out of a pit (sectors 1547 etc.) in MAP08.

Thanks for that.

 

I missed those issues with MAP09, and being able to skip the map is a big problem (this map is my favourite).  What I really wanted to avoid, was doing an "update", because then there are different versions floating around, and that would irk me, but I think I do have to fix these up and do a v1.1

 

 

 

[General Rainbow Bacon]

Played the first 2 maps now.  Really good stuff.  The health seems unbalanced in map01 though as at the beginning I couldn't find much and then a lot of it showed up later.  Maybe it was there, but I didn't see it until later.  Map02 had awesome pacing and the exploration was really fun, although some people might complain that a few of the switches are tucked away and hard to find.  These maps are what Doom is about.  Keep it up.  I'd like to see this turn into a full megawad at some point.  

[Borax Man]

10 hours ago, General Rainbow Bacon said:

Played the first 2 maps now.  Really good stuff.  The health seems unbalanced in map01 though as at the beginning I couldn't find much and then a lot of it showed up later.  Maybe it was there, but I didn't see it until later.  Map02 had awesome pacing and the exploration was really fun, although some people might complain that a few of the switches are tucked away and hard to find.  These maps are what Doom is about.  Keep it up.  I'd like to see this turn into a full megawad at some point.  

 

The unbalanced health/ammo is actually deliberate!  I wanted it just unbalanced enough, so that the player at times feels under pressure, other times, feels they can just mow through, but never unbalanced to the point where it becomes too easy or too hard.  You'll find the same with ammo.  The idea was to vary the pace so the player would have to "adapt", and at times and to allow a variety of gameplay 'experiences'.

[General Rainbow Bacon]

That's interesting.  Once I found it  I had no problem getting to it, but at the beginning when you don't know where anything is it can get rough.  I think I like it actually now that I know that you did it on purpose.  It sort of makes it a puzzle where you have to figure out where the health is.  I only found 3 of the 8 secrets in map 01 too so you probably put health in secrets I didn't find.  That blur artifact in that square room secret seemed to be kinda useless to me, but that's probably because I found it after I cleared that area.  I'll let you know what I find in the next couple maps.  

[Borax Man]

 

34 minutes ago, General Rainbow Bacon said:

T I think I like it actually now that I know that you did it on purpose.  It sort of makes it a puzzle where you have to figure out where the health is.

Yep, that's what I intended.  I wanted the player to have to plan and evaluate what to do a little more, than say in a wad were all the ammo and health they need is always just in front of them. I hope it never cryptic or frustrating to get at it, its always not far, but the idea was to make the player make more thought out choices.

 

Obviously, this wad is not designed for speedrunning!

[Bushpig2dope]

Had an awesome time playing but shamefully stuck on level 2. obtained yellow key and lost

[Borax Man]

46 minutes ago, Bushpig2dope said:

Had an awesome time playing but shamefully stuck on level 2. obtained yellow key and lost

At the end of this corridor where the Arachnotrons are (screenshot below), there is a teleporter which takes you back to the start.  Take the same route you took last time to progress.  Soon after you enter the first "sewer", the yellow door is on your left.

 

[Bushpig2dope]

3 hours ago, Borax Man said:

At the end of this corridor where the Arachnotrons are (screenshot below), there is a teleporter which takes you back to the start.  Take the same route you took last time to progress.  Soon after you enter the first "sewer", the yellow door is on your left.

 

Yes but what do you do from that room?
 

Don't worry only just figured that gave me the blue key